ELKHART LAKE, Wisconsin – Having grown up in Las Vegas and with a father who is a titan in the hotel and gambling industry there, Brendan Gaughan knows a thing or two about sucker bets and hustling a mark.

That’s why when the rain came midway through Saturday’s Gardner Denver 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America, Gaughan was smacking his chops and counting his chips.

“I love racing in the rain, it’s fun,” said Gaughan. “And when you’re good at it, it makes it even more fun.

“I haven’t smelled blood in a long time, that’s something I’ve been lacking lately, that killer attitude. When it started to rain, even without the wiper blade (was broken), I started to smell blood and said, ‘I’m coming.’

“It’s fun to watch guys who haven’t done it in the rain. They don’t understand the rain line, and fortunately for me, I did.”

When NASCAR officials called all competitors into the pits on Lap 27 and mandated that all cars switch from dry slicks to rain tires, it was a new experience for pretty much everyone in the field.

But not Gaughan (or for that matter, runner-up Alex Tagliani). He’s taken part in a number of races in the rain in various series in his career, including one of the two prior NNS races ran in the rain in Montreal in 2010 (the other was also in Montreal in 2008).

Like a poker dealer with a deck of marked cards, Gaughan the rain-racing veteran knew he had a marked edge over almost every other driver in the field – and then he went out and took advantage of it.

Granted, if Tagliani had not run out of fuel on Lap 49 and if the originally scheduled 50-lap race hadn’t been extended three more laps, Gaughan might not have won.

But those are too many ifs.

Still, the point is Gaughan did win, he had fun and wound up winning one of the most exciting and action-filled – albeit wet – NNS races the series has seen in a long time.

Not only did Gaughan teach a lesson to his fellow competitors on how to get around a slippery when wet racetrack (sorry Bon Jovi, I know that’s the title of your biggest-selling album/CD, but I couldn’t resist), Gaughan also made a very poignant comment in the track media center after the race.

Race fans have complained for years that NASCAR should run Sprint Cup races in the rain, rather than pushing them back or postponing them outright – like we saw earlier this year at Daytona and Texas.

The logic goes that if the technology exists to have rain tires run on road courses and in the Nationwide Series, why not extend that to the Sprint Cup Series.

After all, if Formula One, rally cars and other series can race in rain, why can’t NASCAR?

I admit, I’ve also often wondered about that, too.

So when I asked Gaughan — who is a pretty smart guy, having graduated from Georgetown University — after Saturday’s race why can’t we see Sprint Cup races run in the rain, he set me straight … and hopefully will teach many fans a valuable lesson after they read his words:

“You can’t on an oval, period, that’d be asinine and dumb,” Gaughan said. “You just can’t do it. There’s no rain line on an oval course.

“Here (at the Road America road course), you can get away from rubber. Here, you don’t have the same G-forces and physics acting upon your race car. You cannot race in the rain on an oval, it just will not happen.

“But on a road course, as we showed today, you can put on a hell of a race in the rain. … You got some spins, you had some excitement, then you saw old rain tire, new rain tire, dry tire at the end.

“I don’t know how much more drama (people could want) – what it looked like from the TV camera – but inside the driver’s seat, it looked pretty cool to me.”

Saturday’s race in the rain indeed was pretty cool. And now hopefully a lot of folks will finally understand why – unless it’s Sonoma or Watkins Glen – you can forget about seeing rain tires at every other Sprint Cup track on the circuit.

What worked for Gaughan in the rain on a road course at Road America just won’t translate on a conventional Cup track.

The second season of “Dinner with Racers,” presented by Continental Tire, drops its first batch of episodes today.

The 28-episode season follows the first 28 episodes released last year. This year, podcast hosts and sports car veterans Sean Heckman and Ryan Eversley saddled up in a Honda Odyssey minivan for the cross-country tour, while riding on Continental Tires.

There’s some great guests and details. Here’s the full breakdown, plus a video, below:

—

One year after the successful debut of the motorsport podcast series “Dinner with Racers,” the antics of Ryan Eversley and Sean Heckman have returned for the binge release of “Season Two,” launching today. Following their 2015 debut that featured a month-long road trip recording 26 conversations “over dinner” with some of the most interesting characters in motorsports, the duo will launch another 28 recordings for their 2016 adventure. The second season will be released in two waves, with “Release One” launching the first 14 recordings immediately, and “Release Two” featuring an additional 14 recordings slated to release on December 16. All episodes can be found at www.dinnerwithracers.com or via iTunes.

Traveling for 40 days across 29 states, and covering 12,000 miles in 2016, the trip was made possible in part by the Honda Odyssey that was lent to the team by American Honda Motor Co., Inc, and most importantly thanks to a continuing title partnership with Continental Tire, who not only provided Cross Contact LX20 tires for the trip but covered the team’s expenses, as well as every meal.

Continuing the same theme from the debut season, #DWR2 follows a nearly identical format. A factory racing driver for Acura in the World Challenge series, Ryan Eversley makes up half of the hosting lineup, with motorsport marketing / creative content veteran Sean Heckman completing the duo. Using their unique blend of humor, insight, experience, as well as genuine love of the sport, Eversley and Heckman pick up right where they left off in Season One, exposing some of the most unique and entertaining stories from their variety of guests.

Meeting up with 28 different characters “over dinner,” listeners will exposed to a variety of personalities, everything from NASCAR and IndyCar star drivers, to some of the most respected engineers and mechanics, journalists, and broadcasters in the business. Stories cover everything from what it was like to be the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 and then Daytona 500, to giving up a contract worth over $2mil just to be a “good guy,” to turning a satiric twitter account in to a full-time job, as well as enjoying life after nearly three decades in prison. Topics include everything from a transgender pig, to being given dead cat whiskers as a good luck charm, to having guns pulled in the middle of a race shop, and even buying a race track in the hopes of laundering money through it.

For Ryan Eversley, a chance to continue the series was a welcome one.

“I know it’s a cliché, but It truly is such an honor and a privilege to be able to do this,” stated Eversley. “Both Sean and I were truly blown away by the fan support from Season One, it’s honestly something we weren’t expecting. It really meant a lot to get so many nice comments, and that kept us very motivated for Season Two. I think our genuine love of the sport translates when people listen, because we really enjoy hearing the real back stories in what makes everyone so unique. This season did not disappoint us at all. This show lives and dies by its guests, and we couldn’t have been luckier to have such a great group who were not only engaging and interesting, but also incredibly gracious with their time. It’s an absolute blast doing this, and we really appreciate Continental for continuing their support, as well as Honda for giving us an incredibly comfortable car for such a long trip.”

For Sean Heckman, a similar sentiment is shared.

“What he said,” stated Heckman.

Additionally, the series will continue to support less exposed musical acts, with each episode promoting a variety of musicians and bands at the close of every episode.

Ahead of the event in Las Vegas, each of the 10 of the sim racers that have qualified have been paired up with a Formula E team.

“I’d like to officially welcome the sim racers who qualified through the Road to Vegas Challenge to participate in the inaugural Visa Vegas eRace,” Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag said.

“I’ve been following the progress of the sim racers throughout the qualification process, and I can’t wait to see them on the same track as the rest of the Formula E grid.

“Accessibility and fan engagement are two of the key cornerstones of Formula E, and what better way to promote this than getting the sim racers to compete in the same colours as their Formula E counterparts – it will be fascinating to see who comes out on top.”